


been living in the fast lane

by arahir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Motorcycles, Mutual Pining, aka i watch too many bad action movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: Keith takes the ride of his life. Shiro loses his mind.As they watch, the timer flips from 7:00 to 6:59, seconds flicking by. "We've got a bomb," Keith reports over the general radio as calmly as he can.There's a beat before Pidge responds, cool as ever. "Ok. Bomb squad is en route. ETA is ten minutes.""Uh yeah, so that might be a problem." Hunk offers, diplomatically.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [featherstorm77 said](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/166270378580/consider-sheith-cop-au-keith-rides-a-motorcycle): sheith cop au, keith rides a motorcycle and is reckless
> 
> this is a screencap redraw of one of my favorite old school [gundam wing fics](http://kracken.bonpublishing.com/fiction/gw/sunhawk%27s%20fics/sunhawk_oneshot_elglideingreen.shtml). all credit for the idea to sunhawk, the most high.

"Uh, hey? Guys? Why is this box ticking?" Hunk asks over the radio.

He's on the other side of the warehouse, opposite where Keith is directing clean up. Drug busts are nasty, every time, even when they go point-by-point according to plan. There are too many variables, like the bloody gash Lance is currently sporting over one eye. The medics have him propped up in the corner, applying field dressing; he’ll live, but no one wants to meet a bullet face-first like that.

(Shiro is going to yell at him for it. He always yells when they do something to make his hair go more grey.)

"Ticking how?" Pidge asks over the comms.

Hunk hums. "Like bad ticking? Like something that's on a timer, and I really don't want to be here when it stops?"

Keith has only been paying half attention to their conversation, busy counting boxes and marking off paperwork, like that's going to head off the five days of reports that bookend every case, but ominous ticking sets alarm bells off in his head. The operation they're dismantling is slick and professional and definitely not above booby trapping a warehouse just to fuck with their day. With everyone’s day.

He shoves his paperwork off on the nearest grunt and runs over to where Hunk is nervously hovering over his cardboard box. “What have we got?”

Hunk motions at the box and looks at him a little helpless. “A box?” he offers.

That’s—about what he expected. They’re all several days beyond tired. There’s nothing else for it; he pulls out his knife and starts edging it under the tape around the top of the box.

"What are you doing?"

Keith grits his teeth. "I'm cutting it open." It's been a long day, in a long week, in one of the most tedious investigations of his career. All he wants is to go home to his dog and a bowl of reheated ravioli and sleep for a year, but that's not happening until this box is taken care of.

"Wait—what if it's rigged?" Hunk asks.

That's not how it works, and Hunk knows that better than him. This whole damn investigation has everyone on their last leg. "Then you should go stand over there," Keith tries not to snap. Dog, ravioli, cold bed. Sleep, maybe, finally.

Hunk doesn't leave, watching him cut away the top of the box with as much care as possible. "You know, I'm making dinner for everyone later if you want to come? I know you don't usually—"

"I'm busy," Keith lies openly. "Sorry."

He was never part of their group, and now that he outranks everyone but Shiro, it's worse. He’s never had the easy kinship with the team that Shiro does and they don't want him there, not really.

"Are you sure? You always say—"

Keith finally works his fingers under the lid, and they both hold their breath as he lifts it off.

"Oh no," says Hunk, and yeah.

It’s a bomb, complete with blinking numbers and a slick metal case, like something out of a movie. Hunk is their hard tech expert, but they way he’s staring down at it tells Keith everything he needs to know.

Hunk takes a shaky breath. “It’s plastic, probably.” Which is good news, because it means they can move it, and bad news in literally every other way.

As they watch, the timer flips from 7:00 to 6:59, seconds flicking by.

"We've got a bomb," Keith reports over the general radio as calmly as he can.

There's a beat before Pidge responds, cool as ever. "Ok. Bomb squad is en route. ETA is ten minutes."

"Uh yeah, so that might be a problem." Hunk offers, diplomatically.

Keith is already three steps ahead of him, because yeah, that's enough plastic explosive to level more than the warehouse, and there's no way they can evacuate everything and everyone they need to in seven minutes—

Six minutes, thirty seconds.

Also? This entire investigation, the last two months of sleepless nights and paperwork and literal blood and sweat and tears will be down the drain.

Yeah, that's not happening.

"What are you doing?" Hunk asks in a panic as Keith cuts away the rest of the cardboard box and lifts the case into his arms. It's heavy, and that's bad, but it confirms that there's only one option here.

 _Don't bring that thing to work_ , Shiro moaned at him after he made rank, but he can drive whatever he wants. His bike is sitting outside the warehouse, all slick red lines and matte black over a 200 horse power engine. _That's ridiculous_ , Shiro said. _I can't believe you actually bought that_.

Yeah, well. Today it's going to save all their lives and this shit investigation.

Hunk follows him outside, every definition of nervous, a few of the grunts trailing after him like ducklings. Keith is horrible with names, but he knows the one with the off regulation hat is a single dad with two kids he's going to have to pick up from school at four, and the tall one has been happily married for 15 years—his wife sends him to work with cookies worth dying for, and the kid with curly hair is new and young and no. There's no way he's risking this—there's no way he's risking any of them.

Six minutes. He sets the box on the back of the bike, gently.

"I don't think this is a good—"

"Rank," Keith reminds him, tongue in cheek. He's used to pulling it with Lance more than Hunk, and they all know he doesn't mean it, but it's a gentle reminder: Keith has his reasons; he’s never reckless without need, no matter what Lance says. "Will you hold this steady?"

Hunk sets a hand on the box without hesitating, and Keith is already ripping his belt off and cinching it tight around the box and seat of the bike. He follows it up with the cords he keeps for more mundane occasions like grocery shopping, and that’s as good as it’s going to get. There's literally no time to waste. He tosses a leg over the bike and gets it started.

There’s a moment where he considers the helmet, but it won’t work with the ear piece. Keith taps the mic and nods at Hunk. "I'll be on the radio."

The endgame is to get it away from the investigation, from the city, from people in general, and that’s going to be a challenge in a morass of urban sprawl with a population approaching a million. He has a vague plan to head to the docks, but that's going to depend on a lot of factors he has no control over—

Like the red light at the end of the street, for starters. A quick glance back at the box tells him he has five minutes to make it through three miles of downtown traffic at rush hour.

He leans forward and guns it.

Lance's voice is the first thing he hears on the open channel. "Are you nuts?" he’s screaming.

Keith doesn't respond, because he's busy dodging around the FedEx van that's heading through the intersection—he makes it by inches, but the Honda on the other side of it almost clips him. Percussive force is bad for plastic explosives; he's definitely read that somewhere.

It takes less than a second all told. He shoots through the intersection in a blur of red, and the sound of car horns is already fading behind him.

"I'm not nuts," he mutters over the radio.

There's an instantaneous din of sound as the radio tries and fails to parse out the sound of three people yelling in tandem. The only saving grace is that Shiro isn’t on the line, too.

"Oh, good, he's alive," Lance yells. "What's the plan hotshot? You gonna go blow yourself up?"

He doesn't dignify that with a response, but Pidge does. "Lance, shut up. Keith, where are you at?"

That's a good question. He dodges a poorly parked four door and pulls up his best mental map. "West Franklin and Second."

"Ok. Do you... have a plan?"

That actually is a good question, because as soon as he slides around the corner he sees a problem—a fatal problem. Five lanes of traffic, stopped dead.

He might be able to squeeze through it, but that’s risky at best. The one time he took Shiro out on his bike and tried lane splitting, the man had almost cried. It was worth it, to feel those arms grip around his waist, to feel Shiro's face against his neck, but Shiro is about as wide as the box on the back and even coming close to clipping a van with fifteen pounds of explosives strapped inches from his butt is not how he wants this day to end. Though it's starting to like he's not going to have much choice.

He glances back. Four minutes.

His nebulous plan gets a little fuzzier as he comes up on the jam and has to break, hard. "The docks," he growls, and revs the bike. It has a horn, but that doesn’t really have the gravitas the situation calls for.

"Keep us updated.”

He dodges to the right of a truck and slows down as much as he can, before he revs the engine again, drops the clutch, and jumps the curb. The pedestrians on the sidewalk gets the picture and scatter out of the way; he guns it. For all that he might be living his last moments, this is at least a third of his bucket list squared away in one go.

He loses himself in dodging dumbfounded onlookers and poles and all the assorted detritus of food carts and pop up art stands. Two more turns and it's a straight shot to the docks—

Beyond that, nothing.

The bomb has to go in the water, and that means the bike has to go with it. He thumbs over the custom grips and almost goes mournful over it, but if the bike goes...

It seems ridiculous, suddenly, because he saved up half a year's salary to buy the bike of his dreams, in defiance of everyone and all logic. Pidge called it his mid-life crisis, and she wasn’t far off, but the real crisis wasn’t the bike—it was the realization that his six year crush on his best friend and boss was a permanent, immutable fixture in his life. The bike was a consolation. He'd earned it, he figured.

His one indulgence, and now it's going to get blown up over the bay. Typical. And somehow _that's_ what his mind fastens onto instead of the obvious follow through: if the bike goes, he’s going with it.

"Three minutes," Pidge marks for him, just as the sidewalk ends and he jumps the bike into the street at speed—right as the light turns green. His tires squeal for one horrifying moment because he forgot he was maneuvering the bike with fifteen pounds of excess weight on the back. The cross traffic doesn't appreciate the intrusion; there's another chorus of horns as he tries to pull off the hair pin turn without wrecking into anything that will end his ride right there.

But it's too close—too tight, too fast.

He sticks out a foot to keep the bike at the bare minimum of upright through the turn. Something rolls and cracks. The pain is instantaneous, splitting up his leg from his ankle. There’s no chance to stifle the scream it tears out of him.

The yelling over the radio is immediate. And yeah, the horns, the screeching tires, the screaming—it probably didn’t sound great, but the excess noise over the comm isn’t helping him avoid another wreck as he tries to get the bike to stay upright.

“I’m fine,” he gasps, when he can see his way past the pain and adrenaline. It’s a bad lie.

Pain is just a message, he reminds himself, and jams his foot back on the peg, trying to focus on the stream of traffic ahead of him. It goes numb—shock, his mind supplies, but he’ll take what he can get. There’s room to maneuver, at least, and he tries to lose himself in the rhythm of weaving back and forth between vehicles.

His ankle is beyond busted, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. It doesn’t matter. It won’t matter.

The trio work themselves out over the radio, and then Hunk’s voice comes through sure and soft. “You’re gonna make it buddy,” Hunk assures him. “How far out are you?”

It takes him a moment to gather himself and pull up his mental map. “Two, three miles?”

Someone curses over the radio, but Pidge shushes them. “Two thirty on the clock, Keith,” she marks for him, a little apologetic.

That’s—not doable. Even two miles in three minutes, on these streets, would be a tall order. No. He can do it. He has to. His ankle is throbbing in time with his heart, blood rushing in his ears.

He slows for the turn, slides behind a bus and into the gutter, cutting as close as possible. It’s almost a straight shot from there out, and there’s not much traffic out this close to the industrial zone. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

"Hey, guys? Will you take care of my dog?"

He can hear Lance's eye roll over the radio. "No, because you're gonna take care of your dog. You're not going to die!"

That's a nice sentiment, but Pidge interrupts them with a quiet, "Two minutes," and that's it.

"Look, please can you just—"

"Yeah! Yeah fine we'll take care of your dog, but you're gonna be fine."

Pragmatic. That's what Shiro calls him. Fatally pragmatic. It's been weeks since they had a real conversation. No time, no room to breathe, and suddenly he regrets that above all else. What's the last thing they said to each other? There's a moment of panic where he tries to remember and can't.

Was it about the case? Did Shiro invite him out for drinks after work? Did he give Keith that sad smile that said he knew Keith would say no before he opened his mouth? Shiro always asked though. Always.

On this one thing, this most important thing, he's lived like a coward.

"Hey—" he starts, but then he rounds the last corner, skidding so close he could touch the road if he wanted, and he sees.

It's a straight shot to the pier, to the water, and there's nothing there. Nothing to land on, no obvious alternative that doesn't mean he's going to have to drive himself off the pier along with the bomb, and if he bails off he’s going to hit the pier or the water going upwards of a hundred miles of an hour.

"Can you tell Shiro something for me?" he asks as the bike levels out and he starts to accelerate through that last stretch. There's silence on the line, which makes it both easier and harder somehow. "Can you tell him I'm sorry?"

“ _Keith_.“

“No. I just—“

Don’t be a coward, he tells himself. There’s nothing left here to lose.

“Tell him I love him. Please.”

That's not what he means to say—not by a long shot, but there are seconds on the clock, and the end of the peer is all he can see. He rips off the headset, because whatever happens it’s going to get ruined and that's not something they need to hear.

And then the pier is gone and there's nothing but blue sky and blue water.

What he means to do is hit the water, because water isn't soft, but it's the better choice between fifteen pounds of C4 and the concrete quay, and at least then they won’t have to scrape him off the ground. But his timing is off, and that lost second nearly undoes him. He's in mid air when the bomb goes off. The force of the blast sends him flying against gravity, and he has one instant of ringing ears before the concrete is rushing up to meet him.

The first bounce doesn't knock him out, but it's a near thing. Something crunches and the pain doesn’t have time to register before the second landing makes everything go dark for a moment.

The fall of displaced water from the explosion brings him back, and he clings to the blur of light and the throb of pain, because going to sleep again when he can't even tell what parts of him are broken seems like a bad idea—and he's nothing if not stubborn.

Time is impossible to mark past the ringing and rush of blood in his ears; he doesn't hear the sirens, but there must be some because soon there are flashing lights and shadows falling over him.

Someone presses a hand against his neck—it's a shock. All the pain comes rushing to the front of his mind. He tries to say something but it comes out a whimper. His lungs aren't working right. Whoever it is bends down, blocking out his vision—

It's Shiro. His lips are moving, and now the hand against his neck is familiar and warm and as far as last sights go, it's not bad.

But that’s the last thing he sees.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Waking up in a hospital never gets easier.

He’s alone. The familiar haze of pain meds makes it hard to think, but there’s a scratch in his throat that tells him he’s had a tube down his throat and that’s not a great place to start from.

“You just got out of the ICU,” the nurse informs him when she comes in. “No visitors, yet.”

All his critical thinking drives are down, so he can’t parse the sentence to figure out if she means he isn’t allowed visitors or if he hasn’t had any. Either—both. It leaves him hollow.

A doctor comes in, and then another doctor follows, for reasons that are never explained but seem ominous. They explain in tedious, gentle words, that he’s a mess. He’ll be out of work, but he has paid leave and insurance, and he’ll be able to manage on his own. He’ll make a full recovery, and that’s what counts. Two weeks, they tell him, in the end. Two weeks until he can go home and start actually recovering, and he zones out wondering who he’s going to be able to convince to take care of his dog for that long.

The sound of someone coming down the hallway at speed has them all looking up.

A body flies through the doorway—and it’s Shiro. He’s going so fast he skids and has to stop himself on the door frame, and then he sees Keith and his eyes go wide. “You didn’t say you were moving him yet,” he stutters. “I thought—“

The nurse and doctor glance at him, and then at Keith, looking nervous, but then Shiro is pushing past them, looming over Keith where he’s still lying in bed.

He breathes in, mouth falling open, like he’s on the verge of saying something—on the verge of yelling something, but nothing comes out. It’s like he can’t figure out what he wants to say, and it’s an image so divorced from Shiro’s usual cool persona that it’s almost funny.

“You son of a bitch,” he settles on, and Keith may be high on narcotics, but that doesn’t seem quite right.

His memory is a haze. The bike is gone. Maybe more, maybe something worse. Nothing that warrants cursing at someone who’s lying in a hospital, mostly dead—

He remembers.

It comes down on him like a ton of bricks—like a love confession made seconds before a hundred mile per hour wreck and a building-leveling explosion and four days in the ICU. There’s no way to salvage that, or pretend it’s something it’s not.

“When were you going to tell me?” Shiro asks. He looks like he’s in actual pain. The nurse and doctors excuse themselves quietly, which is nice. The fewer witnesses the better.

It’s the end of their friendship, Keith realizes peripherally. _I’ve been secretly in love with you for years, but I’m sure we can still hang out._ No, that’s not weird at all.

He has to say something. Shiro is staring down at him, expressionless, gaze like ice. Keith blinks at him, tries to clear his throat, fails, and tries again, but even the water the nurse gave him isn’t enough to let him manage more than the first syllable of Shiro’s name, and barely that.

It’s pathetic. Shiro’s face crumples at the sound. He picks up Keith’s hand, the one with the drip in it and the bandage around the wrist, like it’s made of glass, and he looks like a wreck, Keith realizes. His clothes are rumpled, like they’ve seen better weeks. The shadows under his eyes are nearly a bruise. His prosthetic isn’t on; he’s got his sleeve tied up out of the way.

He looks like he’s being held together with twine.

“Did you mean it?” he asks.

Keith nods, and croaks out his best attempt at, “Yeah,” because he owes Shiro the truth. He follows it up with what should be a, “Sorry,” but can’t quite manage the last half of it.

“Why are you sorry?” Shiro looks genuinely confused—maybe even hurt, but mostly tired. Keith doesn’t have any words to explain himself. Even if he could talk, he wouldn’t know what to say.

_Sorry that this is awkward. Sorry for the trouble. Sorry I was selfish._

“So you weren’t going to tell me, and you’re sorry you did, but you meant it? Is that everything?”

Keith wants to pull his hand away, look away, go back to sleep and stay there for a year—anything to avoid this.

“And it never occurred to you I would feel the same?”

They’re like words that go to some other conversation. It doesn’t process immediately. There’s no world where Shiro means it the way Keith wants him to, and he’s too hurt and dazed to make it make sense.

Keith shakes his head as much as he can. “You don’t,” he croaks, because Shiro’s misunderstood something.

“Of course I do,” he mutters, like it’s easy and obvious. “But I don’t see you anymore, and you won’t talk to me, and I thought—“ He stops himself, and sighs, but it comes out in one gust. “We all thought you were dead. Even after they got you to the hospital. It almost killed me.”

He stares for another moment, and then seems to muster himself, coming to some decision.

He leans down, close. “I’ve loved you for years,” he confesses, breath shaky against Keith’s cheek, and then presses his lips to the corner of Keith’s mouth.

It’s soft, but full of intent, like he knows Keith will misinterpret any other gesture. He pulls away, only to place another kiss against Keith’s forehead, at the edge of the bandage—not a concussion, just a scrape, the nurse said, and he didn’t even lose any hair, but the way Shiro breathes against it makes it seem like he’s articulating a prayer.

He stays there, hovering, looking down at Keith.

“You love me?” Keith croaks. “Why?”

Shiro laughs, but it’s a stripped down, desperate sound. “Because you’re perfect. Except for when you drive your motorcycle off a fucking dock and try to blow yourself off. Even then, I guess,” he amends.

It wasn’t on purpose. Keith blinks up at him, but the pain meds are dragging him down again, and he can barely keep his eyes open.

“God, you’re a wreck,” Shiro mutters, scrubbing a hand through his own lank hair, but it’s not clear which of them he’s talking about. “You should go back to sleep. We can talk about this—about everything later.”

Keith is still trying to pick up at the spot where Shiro has loved him, like that, for years, and he can still feel the phantom touch of a mouth against his, but it’s useless. Shiro has his hand gripped tight, warm and lulling, and he’s already drifting off when he remembers.

“What about my dog?”

Shiro frowns. “Did you really think you had to ask? Of course we’d take care of her.” He sounds a little sad, a little thoughtful. “Why do you think I wasn’t here when you woke up? Red’s fine. Hunk’s been sending her leftovers, and I’m pretty sure Lance has been sneaking her stuff too.”

That’s not good for her, Keith thinks through a haze. She’ll get fat.

He must whisper it out loud, because Shiro laughs. “No, she won’t. I might though. Hunk’s been stress baking for the whole station.”

The image makes Keith smile. Shiro’s eyes go soft at it, and there are a hundred questions Keith wants to ask, but sleep is pulling him down like a tide. He feels lips against his knuckles.

“I’ll be here, I promise. Go to sleep.”

That’s the last thing he registers.

 

_you are the pay raise, always a touch out of view.  
and i am the color of boom._

_-_ [Polaroid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt5xY-RWByE)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out/apologies to everyone who asked me if they'd hallucinated this chapter because I posted it in untagged pieces on tumblr two months apart. Also I'm literally too incompetent to title and tag a new fic so... here.

"He's coming home with me," Shiro says, like it's writ law.  
  
The doctor takes it in turn. Keith is still stuck on _coming home with me,_ but the conversation spins past him as the doctor goes over what he can eat and do and when he needs to come back, and it's too much.  
  
"Wait—why?”  
  
Shiro's hand tightens on his leg. "Why what?"  
  
"Why am I going home with you?"  
  
The doctor smiles at him kindly. She's been patient despite his rising status as the worst patient ever. Middle aged, lines around her eyes like she likes to laugh, and when they found him trying to walk himself to the bathroom on the second day against explicit orders to not leave his bed, period, she'd smiled that same smile and said he reminded her of her nephew. So he tries not to lose his temper when she says, "You won't be living alone for a while."  
  
It still doesn't explain why he can't go home, to his own home, with his dog, and his—well, admittedly dingy everything. They had a fight about it after his raise, because he can afford a house now— _Or at least curtains, Keith, come on._ You can take the boy out of the one room shack and canned pasta, but you can't take the one room shack and canned pasta out of the boy. That's what Lance said, at least. He had a point.  
  
"But what about Red?"  
  
Shiro's face twists. "She's coming too."  
  
That's new. The way he says it, through pain, like it hurts to realize it's something that needs to be said. There's more wrong between them than simple words can fix, but it's not Shiro's fault. Keith is the problem, as always.  
  
The doctor lets them have a moment before she goes on.

“It’s going to take time.” Her gaze settles on Shiro’s hand and Keith is struck by how intimate it must look and how new it still feels, until he realizes she’s staring because it’s a prosthetic. “Physical therapy three days a week. And you’ll do your exercises at home.” Now she sounds like a mom in earnest. “Don’t push it.”

“He won’t,” Shiro says, sharing a look with her. They’re having some unspoken conversation and Keith can only imagine what’s been said in the hallway out of his earshot.

He tries not to sound years younger than he is when he interjects with, “I know,” but it comes out bad anyway. “I’ve done this before,” he adds, and realizes when he sees the pinch of Shiro’s brow that it was the wrong thing to say to prove his chops.

“You mean when you got—shot? Is that what you’re talking about?” Shiro’s eyes are dead serious. Maybe this isn’t the kind of thing he can be cavalier about now.

Keith lets his gaze stray toward the white paneled plaster ceiling, which is suddenly fascinating. He got shot, _once_. Just once. It wasn't bad. It missed everything vital and he could probably have gotten away with Shiro never finding out if he hadn't been there to see it happen. He's never forgiven Keith for it; if he was over protective before, he's going to be insufferable now. The sheaf of papers in Shiro's left hand crinkles a little and the pit of Keith's stomach heats with something he can’t define.

If he’s right, Shiro has a calendar set up already with every appointment Keith isn’t allowed to miss and an itemized list of foods and exercises timed down to the hour. Routine is his favorite beast to tame and sic on people.  

The doctor watches them, bright-eyed in humor. “Regardless of your… previous medical history, I’d like you to take this slow. Your injuries are extensive.”

She tacks a smile on the end of it. _Extensive_ is their shared word for it. When he'd first woken up she'd used it and he’d said with what voice he could muster that she could say _all fucked up_ if she wanted, and she'd smiled then, too.

They're quiet after she excuses herself. Keith can hear Shiro swallow and start to fiddle with the papers again—a nervous habit. Keith's called him in it a dozen times before they entered the interrogation room, or after a long day when he was too tired to work but couldn’t make himself stop trying. Shiro could sit at his desk shuffling papers for hours if Keith didn't step in to haul his ass to the parking lot some nights.

He fell out of the habit after Shiro’s promotion. Shiro got his own office with his own door and suddenly it felt like stepping in.

“Hey,” Keith says. Shiro glances up at him, the corners of his eyes still pinched. “Sorry.”

Shiro squeezes his leg and pulls away, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It's fluffed and wild, out of its usual neat swept-back style because he had a shower before he came today. “It's fine. I should get back, anyway,” he says, standing with a groan that’s all show.

“You need a break,” Keith mutters and stifles a yawn.

The meds are starting to catch up with him, coupled with the warm breeze coming in through the windows. It ruffles Shiro's hair and the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. Keith is so used to looking and wanting and hurting for it, it still takes him like a shock when Shiro smiles and leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“This was my break.” Shiro stands up and smiles down at him and lets that be his last word.

Maybe he thinks it makes him look cool. Hell, maybe it does, Keith thinks as he drifts off.

 

* * *

  
  
The hospital is designed to frustrate Keith specifically. It’s like the entire place has a personal vendetta against him. Lie down, stay still, don’t exert yourself—call someone if you need to use the restroom. He tries to get information about the case after he first wakes up, but that gets nixed by the staff and Shiro alike. Rest, they say, as if reading would take effort. It nags at him. Someone knew something. Someone got the drop on them. He messed it up, somehow. His biggest case in years and it’s up in literal flames.

He tries to con one of the nurses into giving him a phone--his own is somewhere in the bay in a dozen pieces of electronic confetti--but they refuse him on principle. All he gets is daytime television and whatever version of food the hospital is peddling. Shiro’s presence isn’t the right kind of distraction, but it’s something.  
  
“Everyone wanted to come over later. I told them it would be fine,” Shiro says over the paperwork he’s filling out. He’s got his back to the window and the tiny hospital chair pulled in as close as physically possible. The station never lets him rest; it’s the most time he’s had one-on-one with Shiro in months.  
  
The finished pile is stacked on Keith’s lap like he’s a makeshift table—which he is, he realizes as he flips through channels with his good hand. The other is mummified in bandages and all the better. They say he’ll be picking bits of asphalt out of it for months. He can’t imagine what it looks like under the gauze.  
  
Shiro’s words catch up to him two minutes and ten channels after the fact. “Wait—what? Who’s everyone?”  
  
Shiro doesn’t look up from his papers, but he’s fiddling with his pen now. “The team. A few of your guys wanted to stop in, too.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“They were worried,” Shiro says. He’s always had the kind of voice Keith could listen to for hours; every syllable exuding the quiet confidence that’s Shiro’s trademark—but it’s gone in that moment. His words run low and rough and tight. “We were all worried.”  
  
Keith’s ruined hand is closest to him. Shiro’s gaze is fastened on it.  
  
The pain meds are the first thing he’s kicking when he gets out. They make his thoughts drag, and maybe if he was a little faster he could avoid sticking his entire foot in his mouth. It feels like nothing he says will be right; their friendship is full of pitfalls and traps now.  
  
“…What time?”  
  
Shiro shakes himself. “Two. Why—are you busy later?”  
  
Keith whacks his arm and tries to force himself to take another bite of jello. Shiro watches him, a smile at the edge of his mouth, as if Keith’s jello eating technique is a one-man show. “What?”  
  
“Nothing.” Shiro leans forward and pushes his hair back from his face. The bandage and a week and a half of sponge baths haven’t helped it, and it was impossible before the wreck. It’s good his appearance has never mattered to him because he knows he looks ridiculous. “You can get a nap in before they get here, if you want.”  
  
He opens his mouth to say he doesn’t need a nap, he’s not a child, but his mouth betrays him with a yawn. “Are you staying?” he asks through it.  
  
“Yeah. Of course,” Shiro says. _Of course._ He leans in, across the bed. Keith has the instinct to back up, but there’s nowhere to go—and then Shiro’s lips are on his forehead and his hand is under Keith’s chin, angling him for a deeper kiss. It takes him by surprise. It always takes him by surprise. “Get some sleep, Keith,” he says when he pulls away.  
  
Their new normal is too much for him to take in more than one piece at a time. They’ve always touched. They’ve always cared. But now the care is personal and the touch is--this. He watches Shiro push the bangs out of his eyes, dark eyes running back and forth across another page of bureaucratic minutiae. He’s the only one that reads that stuff.

If Keith wanted, he could sit up and lean into his space and Shiro would accept it. It’s some dream he’s shaped over a few years worth of lonely nights made real, but not quite. It feels off. In his dreams, it was easier. In his dreams, it’s a one-night lapse in judgment and control and they both enjoy it, but never talk about it again. Or: something long and slow they come into in little ways and no one ever notices enough to mention it.

You confessed, he reminds himself, to Lance and Pidge and Hunk. He shot that dream himself.

Somehow, he never expected to have to confront it head on. Even after he woke up, it was a conceptual thing more than literal:  The three of them know he has the hots for Shiro--has had said hots, has been burning with this, for years--but maybe he could join another precinct or make them sign a blood pact to never discuss it out loud again. Kisses on the cheek, bedside vigils and hospital visits--those are for someone else.

He drifts off to the sun in Shiro’s more salt than pepper hair and tries to figure out how he got from A to B.

 

* * *

 

Whatever he expected, it’s not what he gets.  
  
Pidge is the first in the door when they get there. She’s still in uniform, hair sticking out from under the cap he’s tell seconds from ribbing her about not taking off at the door, but she freezes and then moves so fast his drug-hazed mind can’t track her until there’s a warm head of curly hair pressed to his chest and two arms clinging around his back.  
  
Keith looks down at her and then up at the rest of the mob at the door. Their expressions are unreadable—except Shiro, who’s standing with them and projecting concern and annoyance loud and clear.  
  
“Katie, watch it,” he chides, a little too sharp.  
  
She jerks away, staring at Keith in horror. “Sorry, did I hurt you?” She pulls off her glasses to wipe at her eyes while Keith shakes his head dumbly, half at the fact she’s crying, god, she’s crying, and half at Shiro’s tone. The rest of the group files in.  
  
Hunk brings food that’s never seen the inside of a wrapper or plastic cup, so he’s Keith’s new favorite by default. Pidge has a card signed by more people at the station than Keith thought knew his name. Lance sets a vase of flowers by his bed--the kind that say _Allura picked me out_ from the tasteful color assortment to the curling script on the little insert card. Shiro excuses himself midway through the festivities and Keith can relate. There’s a new dynamic and it’s weird, but Shiro’s not the one that confessed a five-year crush on his boss to his teammates, so it seems a little cowardly.  
  
“How did he find out, anyway?” he asks.  
  
There’s a suspicious silence and then Katie puts her hand on his shoulder. “I had you on an open mic.”  
  
Keith frowns. “I know—”  
  
“No. I had you on an _open mic_.” She enunciates it, voice going a little high and soft in what Keith recognizes is a mild terror. Keith isn’t necessarily known for his ability to handle all things calmly, Shiro related things least and last.  
  
There’s a distant buzzing in his ears. “…Who heard?”  
  
“Everyone?” she asks, optimistically, like they’re speculating about humanity as a whole and this is someone else’s problem and not limited to a very insular group that includes every human Keith interacts with.  
  
_Everyone._  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Lance and Hunk are hovering over her shoulder, trying hard not to look nervous and failing. Pidge glances around. Maybe the entire station is waiting outside to come parading him. Maybe this is a dream. Maybe he’s still passed out on the pier. It would be kinder.  
  
“I mean, well... a few people were busy with dispatch, but…”  
  
He doesn’t want to know what they thought. It was a last second impulse and now he’s not sure why he did it. It seemed like something Shiro ought to know. He’d thought it would make it easier, somehow, to let go. It hadn’t. The window is still open, and the breeze is a nice distraction, at least. He takes a breath of fresh fall air and another and tries to think.  
  
“How was cleanup?” Keith asks when the silence drags and it looks like Hunk is close to experiencing a fatal dose of embarrassment in honor of Keith's loss. He doesn’t really have a right to it when Keith is the one whose life is over.  
  
“You or the warehouse?” Lance asks because it’s a cheap shot and he can never resist.  
  
Keith doesn’t roll his eyes, just to deny him the pleasure. “The investigation.”  
  
Hunk’s face does a little nervous twitch. “Not… great?”  
  
Pidge reaches up and pushes the hair back from Keith’s forehead, though it’s hopeless with the bandage. She’s always trying to put him back in line. “You blew up our evidence, buddy. We don’t have any other leads right now. Sorry.”  
  
That explains their hangdog looks and the bags under Shiro's eyes and his stubborn insistence that Keith not touch the case for now. There’s no ETA on when Keith will be allowed back—as soon as possible, if he has anything to say about it, and they’re wrong. They do have a lead. The op was running butter-smooth until that final hour. Keith kept it quiet and kept it low. His team knew. Shiro knew. The list of suspects for who could have outed them far enough in advance to plant that kind of trap is vanishingly short and Keith’s had days to run over it in his mind.  
  
But the only sure way to get himself on desk duty is to tell them about it. _We’ll handle it from here, Keith._ Shiro’s already going to be insufferable about it. The longer he holds these cards, the better.  
  
“Hold down the fort, okay?” They nod. It’s enough.  
  
Pidge and Hunk make their excuses when Keith starts to feel his eyes drooping again, but Lance lingers at the door. Every one of Keith’s alarm bells starts to ring, and then Lance looks up and down the hallway and sneaks back inside with exaggerated care, almost on tip-toe. Keith considers hitting the nurse assist, but Lance plops down beside him on the bed without trying anything.  
  
“Got something for you,” he says instead and pulls his phone out, glancing around again like it’s contraband. “Check this out, dude.”  
  
It takes Keith a second to realize what they’re watching. It’s amateur video of him, filmed in portrait by someone on a street corner. The clip is short but glorious—he actually got some air over the curb.

They spend a solid ten minutes watching video of his red bike flying through the city from various angles. Lance hisses when they get a clear shot of the instant that crunched Keith’s ankle.  
  
“Wow. I didn’t think you were this cool.”  
  
Keith snorts. “You? Can think?”  
  
Lance rolls his eyes and plays the next video. They get a better angle on it because it’s shot by a local news helicopter—complete with commentary. A birds-eye view of him and his bike flash up on the screen, a speck of red racing toward the glittering ocean. “Look at you go! How fast was that?”  
  
“Eighty, I think,” Keith says, trying not to preen. It was seventy, tops, but you’re allowed to round up if it lands you in the hospital. He’s getting into it, tracking his own progress, trying to figure out where he could have turned, shifted, done better, when Lance tears the phone out of his hand.  
  
“What?” Keith shoots him a look and then sees he’s gone still and wide-eyed. He’s staring across the room at the door.

Shiro is standing there, face as white as the paper bag in his hand.  
  
He jerks forward enough to set it on the table by the door. “Just—dropping this off,” he says in a tone Keith’s never heard before.

Without another word, he turns and disappears so fast Keith isn’t sure he didn’t imagine him there.  
  
Next to him Lance mutters a vehement, “Fuck,” and slides off the edge of the bed. “He’s gonna kill me.” Keith can count on one hand the number of times Shiro has yelled at them. Somehow this is worse.  
  
“He banned these around the department,” Lance explains, apologetic, waving his phone vaguely. “The videos. When we found you—” Lance gusts a breath out between his lips, “—man, I thought we were going to have scrape you off the pier with a spatula.” He mimes doing just that, face a little off-color. “We didn’t even know where to touch to see if you were still kicking. Just—cut him some slack, for a while. We thought we were gonna lose you.”  
  
Keith nods. He can hear his blood rushing in his ears on the heart monitor. Lance goes before Shiro gets back. A few others from the team trail in as afternoon pushes to evening. They all look at him with the same sad smile. It’s not pity--maybe it would make it easier if it was. He’s not sure how he feels about the transition from aloof team leader to beat up dog found on a street corner.

Shiro is conspicuously absent. A new kind of guilt wriggles through his stomach; even Hunk’s mini bread can’t exorcise the feeling, so he gives up and wishes the nurses trusted him enough to have access to crutches or maybe a car, come to that. He could call, but it’s not the kind of thing you can apologize for by text. Sorry is becoming his new mantra.

A nurse comes around and delivers his dinner right about the time he’s given up on Shiro coming back that day entirely.

“No visitor?” she asks while she straightens his bed and scribbles something down on his chart. “That boy haunted your room for a solid four days. We were starting to think he got glued to the chair.”

Keith smiles. It’s been years since he heard anyone call Shiro a boy. It’s easy to forget he’s still young. He shakes his head and she barrels on.

“We tried to get him to leave and he pulled a badge on us.” She tuts. It doesn’t seem like something Shiro would do, but it’s been years since he saw Shiro scared. The memory of Shiro’s voice is the last piece he has of that day, and it’s like a dream he’s trying to remember weeks after the fact. The memory that overlays it in his mind is the next proximal stand-in: last time Shiro saw him bleed, his hands skating over Keith in undiluted terror, and Keith hadn’t even passed out that time.  
  
Even with a lengthy ICU stay and days of bed rest under his belt, he looks like the bike dragged him the last mile, and Keith can’t imagine what he looked like fresh. Shiro keeps looking and fussing like he’s worried parts of Keith are going to start falling off if he’s not there to hold them on. He has a new habit of running his fingers through Keith’s hair, tracing the edges of the bandage that’s still there, and then sometimes, if they’re alone and it’s quiet, down over his collarbone and ribs.  
  
There’s a bruise there they both know would have been lethal if he’d been going a little faster, fallen a little harder. He won’t stop touching and Keith isn’t sure he would want him to if he had the strength to ask.

“I think I messed up,” he hears himself say.

The nurse pauses by his bed. “Oh sweetheart. We all saw it on the news. You didn’t do a thing wrong.” Now she’s wearing the same look the team was. Not pity. Not sympathy. Care, maybe, but the kind that hasn't been earned. 

“No—” he starts, but can’t give voice to the twisted up mess in his chest. It’s guilt and want and that little nagging voice that says no matter what he does, he won’t be worth Shiro’s time and regard. “I keep messing it up with him.”

She frowns at him and then quirks one brow. “That boy thinks you hung the moon. Whatever it is, he’ll forgive you.” As if it’s that easy. She reclines the bed for him and pulls the sheets up like he’s a kid that needs tucking in for the night. He lets her, and hates the way the meds can still take him down between thoughts. 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes later to the sensation of cool air and fingers on his hip. It’s one part of him that wasn’t damaged, but there’s a scar there that Shiro must remember. The touch of metal leaves a trail of goosebumps.   
  
The care in it is unmistakable, but there’s a thought he can’t shake in the dark. Shiro loves him, but it’s old news—he’s worried after Keith since the day they met, but it only got bad two years in. A routine call gone wrong and Keith took a risk he shouldn’t have. There wasn’t time to yell or dodge, no slow-motion leap or dramatic face off. The perp looked as shocked as Keith that the gun went off at all, and then the pain hit. It went through just above his hip, a clean shot, in and out.  
  
He’d been lucky. He knew it, right then, but that was when Shiro was his partner and Shiro hadn’t felt quite so optimistic about it at the time. That was when they were uniformed beat cops. Keith still has the perfect image of Shiro in blue, staring down at him in horror.  
  
_“Christ,”_ he’d said, pressing in on the wound with fervor that made the air between them sparkle in Keith’s eyes. He kept repeating it to himself, until it sounded less like a curse than a prayer.  
  
It wasn’t mortal—worse than a graze, but not by much, and Shiro stayed with him the whole time. It wasn’t an overnight. They let him out that day with painkillers and antibiotics and most of the team found it hilarious he’d managed to get shot while he and Shiro were ostensibly on parking duty, but Shiro hadn’t. He’d followed Keith home, spread out in the little kitchen in Keith’s apartment with a fresh bag of groceries and piled food on Keith until they both passed out on the couch to the canned laughter of some sitcom. He’d woken up in bed later with Shiro’s hair in his nose and Shiro’s arm around his waist, and then Shiro had made him breakfast, too.  
  
He’d clung to Keith like that for days, checking and double-checking and driving everyone up the wall. This is the same situation—but this time, Keith almost died. This time, he made a deathbed confession, and everyone heard. Shiro would do anything to keep him safe. He would do anything Keith wanted, or anything he thought Keith needed to be whole and happy. Whatever it took.

"Sorry," Keith whispers, voice slurred with sleep. 

Shiro takes a breath he can feel secondhand in the dark by the way the prosthetic digits shake as they press against him. "You don't need to apologize to me."   
  
The private thought Keith can’t shake is that that Shiro loves him—but not like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)] [[on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/)]
> 
> There's more, but this is a low priority WIP for now. I have two more chapters done so those should roll out before too long. Thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

“I can still go back to my place—”

“Nope!” Shiro shares a look with the two attendant nurses who are hovering around the wheelchair at a loss. They were supposed to get Keith in the wheelchair themselves, but Shiro took matters into his own hands—literally, picked him up and set him down like he weighed nothing. He's not special. Keith could lift him, too, if his arm weren't messed up and his leg weren't in a cast and—it's the principle of the thing. He doesn't need to be carried around.

He's been trying for hours and days to convince Shiro that wasting his days as a part time babysitter isn't in his best interest. “But I've got crutches.”

Shiro leans on the arms of the wheelchair, wilting. “Keith, I swear to god.” He looks at Keith and from that close it's lethal. There are a few lines around his eyes that Keith knows by heart, tracked the creation of like a map. At least a couple are Keith’s fault. “Fine, but if you go back to your place, I'm keeping Red.”

Keith feels his mouth fall open. “Wha—That's blackmail.”

“No,” Shiro says, ruffling his hair before he steps away. “It's kidnapping and coercion.”

He sets a basket in Keith's lap before he wheels them out. It's full of all the flowers and cards and other get-well-soon detritus left in his room, plus a couple mylar balloons that were Lance's idea of a joke. One of them has “Bee Well” written in cartoon font next to a cartoon bee, naturally. The other is a three dimensional smile emoji that's been haunting Keith for days with its dull-eyed joy.

They get a few stares on the way down the hall. Shiro always looks a sight with his vest and slacks and pressed white shirt, hair slicked back, but he's taken the day off to get Keith resettled and dressed down for the occasion. Henleys are a good look for him.

Keith is less style icon, more wild hair and bruise and bandage and cast. Shiro brought him an oversize t-shirt and a butchered pair of sweats he could pull on over the ankle. He feels like a stuffed animal on its third resurrection from the thrift pile.

“I look ridiculous,” Keith mutters.

Shiro snorts. “You what? Since when have you cared?”

Since he had to match up with _that,_ Keith thinks, watching people stare at a spot above his head that must be Shiro and Shiro's big smile and bigger biceps—and then Shiro bends and kisses Keith's cheek, right there in the hallway.

“Don't worry, the asphalt didn't win. You're still a stunner, Red.”

A nurse walking by covers her mouth. Keith feels a little part of his soul try to escape his body.

“You can't call me that anymore. And it was cement.” Keith ducks his head to hide the blush rising in his cheeks.

“Oddly enough, naming your dog after _my_ pet name for you doesn't stop me from using it. And no, it was concrete.”

Pet name, Keith thinks faintly, like he's something Shiro wants to keep and wanted to, right from the start. It was never that deep, that important, that valuable—it was a throwaway because he wore a dumb red jacket and drove a dumb red bike and Shiro was always good at picking out the oddities in him and pretending they were something better.

They make it to the parking lot without incident. The doctor goes with them part of the way and the most Keith can offer is a wave and a thank you, but Shiro pulls her aside and tells her something Keith can’t hear and hugs her before they go.

The drive home is quiet but it fills Keith with a soul-deep sort of worry. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be staying with Shiro and that’s a point of stress because the longer he stays, the longer he has to mess it up. Whatever they are now, it’s not what they were. That’s his fault.

Shiro’s house is two stories, set down a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood that oozes HOA dues. Keith’s secretly loved it for years, from the day Shiro dragged him on his weekly real estate binge to get a second opinion. Big trees, wide street, actual sidewalks—and the backyard is ridiculous for someone who doesn’t spend any time in it. The hardwood floors are mirror-polished, the big bay windows lined with little decorative pillows. It's a level of interior decorating that only Shiro could casually pull off.

Keith loves it—but loving it and spending weeks stuck inside it are two separate things. A thread of foreboding goes up his spine as Shiro parks in the two car garage and walks around to help Keith out of his too-big SUV.

Keith realizes what he’s going to do the second before he does it.

“I can walk,” he says for the dozenth time that day, trying to compartmentalize so the feeling of Shiro’s wide hands under his legs and around his back doesn’t ruin him. The saving grace is that they’re alone. If anyone in the department sees Shiro princess-carry him anywhere, it’s all over.

 _You confessed on an open mic,_ he reminds himself. It’s been over for a couple weeks.

Shiro grunts in annoyance and shifts his weight. His arms are like steel. “I know, but someone wants to say hi to you and I don’t want to have to drive you back to the hospital when she breaks your leg again.”

“Foot,” Keith corrects as Shiro gets the door open, realization dawning and making him grin.

A high pitched whine is the only warning they get before there’s a blur of red fur colliding with them at full speed. Shiro braces himself on the wall, laughing as Keith’s dog yips and tries to get her nose high enough to sniff Keith and smear him with dog spit. Wiggling is one of her best skills. She goes at it like she's trying to vibrate out of her skin. It takes Shiro some fancy stepping to get around her—but she's been trained well.

She backs Shiro up against the wall and it's all he can do not to fall over. Keith is laughing too hard to be any help; he ends up in Shiro's lap along with eighty pounds of dog.

No—eighty five, at least. She really has been spoiled rotten.

“Guess she missed you,” Shiro mutters with a put-upon sigh.

Keith tries to reply, but Red is in the middle of licking his face and if he opens his mouth he'll get more tongue than he wants. It takes her a few minutes to calm down enough for Shiro to right them without risk of dog-related failure and he still ends up having to hop the half step to the couch.

He settles Keith there and then plops down next to him—and then leans back when he gets another lap full of dog, eyes bugging out when she gets a paw where she shouldn’t.

“He’s been letting you up on the couch?” Keith asks, mock-scandalized.

Shiro rolls his eyes. “I’ve been to your apartment. Your couch is half dog hair. Nice try.”

There's sun coming in the windows. Shiro’s hair really is whiter than it was. Or maybe it’s just whiter since the last time Keith had time to look. He has the urge to reach out and part his bangs, see if it’s his imagination. _Don’t touch_ is still ingrained into his muscles and limbs. Stillness was his best defense in a hopeless love.

Shiro has none of that hesitation. He leans over, wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulder and pulls him closer. His eyes are already closed when he asks, “Can we just—stay here today?” It’s not really a question.

Keith isn’t going anywhere. His crutches are still in the garage and Red has figured out if she puts her head in his lap she can get twice the scratching. He feels like he’s been sitting for a month now, but one more day of it won’t kill him. Being out of the hospital has him on a livewire, though. Sleep is impossible.

“It’s really clean in here,” he mutters to himself.  The floors are as clean as they were the day Shiro bought the place, and the furniture is all suspiciously pushed into place when Keith knows the living room had to be ground zero for everyone at the station trying to deal with both their first and second in command being mostly out of commission.

Shiro shifts against him and mumbles, “Yeah. I had to get help.”

Keith nudges him. “Help? Why?”

Shiro tenses. If Keith wasn’t suspicious before, that settles it. “Wasn’t there a—what’d you call it? One of those stool things in here?”

“Ottoman,” Shiro says and pushes his face into Keith’s shoulder. “...Your dog ate it.”

 

* * *

 

There's too much paperwork involved with almost dying. It feels like double jeopardy—he lived, he shouldn’t have to go through this torture, too. There’s case work, a few reports the rest of the team were nice enough to put together for him that don’t require anything more strenuous than a read through and a signature, and endless, endless claims.

Someone put it all in a manila folder for him and added tags to the sheets that actually require some effort. It’s monotonous work and eventually the words start running together. Shiro sits next to him, napping in between finding bad television to watch. He and Red are a pair. The one time Keith has to get up to go to the bathroom, they both go with and wait outside and when he opens the door, it’s like seeing double.

By night, all his enthusiasm for getting work done is dead and gone and he kind of wishes he were a rookie again and could shove the worst of it off on Shiro or Allura. The happy takeaway is that no one else got hurt. The sole casualties were him, the bike, and a few unlucky fish. When he asks Shiro if he could see any flopping on the dock, Shiro gives him a dead eyed stare and Keith figures he’s pushed his luck enough. The insurance on the bike takes him the longest. Shiro leaves him to go make food  halfway through and comes back with a plate of something that smells good.

“Break?” Shiro asks, setting it down next to him. He’s not a great cook, but cheese and pasta is a hard duo to mess up.

Keith swallows around the dryness roughing his throat. “Almost done,” he tries to say, but his voice comes out wrong. He's writing out the circumstances of the wreck and the paper is swimming before his eyes—has been, for minutes, he realizes. “It's the meds,” he manages to croak out. “Sorry.”

_Just a bike. It was just a bike. It doesn’t matter._

It wasn’t, though. It was long nights on the road and a place to think, or a way to outrun his own thoughts if he needed that more. The apartment never felt like a home, but the bike was something he earned and chose and kept just for himself.

Shiro takes the papers out of his hands, sets them on the table, and pulls him into a hug. Keith gives up trying to fight the sting at the corner of his eyes. It really is the meds, he tells himself.

“Don't apologize,” Shiro says.

He gives good hugs. His arms are a vice that doesn't hurt, a kind of warmth that’s all-encompassing of Keith and his sorrows. Red noses at them, trying to edge in on it and Keith is overwhelmingly grateful he doesn't have to go through this with her alone at home. The thought wrings more tears out of him. He's getting Shiro's collar damp.

“But it's dumb,” he sobs.

“No, it's not. Let's get you to bed.”

It can’t be past eight, but Keith doesn’t bother objecting.

Shiro carries him upstairs. Keith doesn't fight that, either. He lets Shiro cradle him, lets himself enjoy the solid strength of his body while his useless tears dry up. It takes time and Keith knows he's heavy, right at the upper limit of Shiro's strength, but it's too good to not indulge in. Red follows, running circles around them, making it slower. “She always thinks I'm stealing you away,” Shiro mutters.

Keith huffs against his shoulder. He's too strung out to muster a good reply. Shiro's never carried him like this while he was awake to enjoy it.

He expects a detour to the guest room, but Shiro turns and takes him to the master bedroom. Keith has been there a few times—not recently. Not carried there in Shiro's arms. The pain meds make his mind slow; when Shiro stops at the bathroom door it takes Keith a moment to pick up where they are and another to lift his head off Shiro's shoulder where it's fallen in rest.

“I'm gonna put you down, okay?” Shiro lowers his legs and lets his arms slip from their grip around his neck. _What were you doing?_ Keith wonders, because he's warm from Shiro’s heat and for a moment he can't make himself let go.

“Why here?”

“Thought you'd want a bath first.”

Once he's said it, the idea sinks right in. Sponge baths don’t count as bathing, and he doesn't mind being dirty, but there's dirt and there's the smell of the hospital that's layered over him weeks strong and rising off his hair.

God—his hair.

Shiro pulls out a spare toothbrush for him and starts running the bath while he brushes his teeth. He tries his best not to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, but it's unavoidable. He looks about as well put together as a half-stuffed scarecrow.

“Can I take this off?” Keith asks, running his fingers over the bandage that's still wrapped around his head. They change it daily, but no one's let him see the mark underneath it yet. He hasn't wanted to.

Shiro nods and helps him pull it off, maybe a bit too slow, a bit too delicate—not that Keith minds. It feels good in a way that's almost shameful. He closes his eyes as the last of it comes off and and Shiro parts Keith's hair around the wound.

“They didn't shave much of it off.” He huffs a little gust of air that moves hot over Keith's bare skin. “We were worried you'd lose it all.” His hand cups the side of Keith's head, turning it to see the mark better and Keith leans into the touch, too tired to fight it. “Well—Lance was all for shaving it.”

Keith snorts. “I bet.” Shiro is taking his time, fingers brushing over the stitches. It doesn't hurt, but by the length Shiro traces, he's glad he was passed out for most of it. “Was it bad?”

Shiro's hand stills. His eyes glance over Keith's and settle somewhere over his shoulder. “Yeah. For a little while they weren’t sure you’d wake up,” he murmurs.

It’s confirmation of what Lance told him. He regrets asking. Shiro stands and steps away, gathering a towel off the counter. He braces himself there. Keith realizes the prosthetic is still on; it’s rare for him to wear it so long. “You crashed twice on the way to the hospital. I was in the ambulance.” In all their time together, Keith hasn’t heard his voice sound so tight. He’s the consummate professional, always—even with Keith. He glances back and then down. “It was touch and go.”

It sounds like an understatement. Keith doesn't know what to say as Shiro takes a breath and turns back to him. Another apology won't be welcome and he doesn't mean it. Not for this. He can't regret it and he won’t pretend to.

Shiro doesn’t seem to expect a reply. Wordless, he reaches down and pulls at the hem of Keith's shirt. Keith catches on after a moment's stillness and raises his arms as best he can. It's like being a kid again. He can't help the indignant eye roll he gives Shiro as the shirt comes off—just because he can.

The eye roll Shiro gives him in return burns. “Will you just let me take care of you?”

He wants that, more than he can admit. More than he knew—and he thought he knew how deep it went, but standing there he sees it for what it is. The first time he was able to put words to it was after graduation, the first time he saw Shiro in a real uniform. They were both dressed for it that day and it wasn't so much the pressed cloth and the handsome cut of it as it was his smile. It was a little crooked and a little chagrined and Keith was… in love.

It’s hard to have Shiro undress him, somehow. It wouldn’t have been a month ago, but now there’s too much between them.

Shiro kneels down, keeping both eyes on Keith's face like he thinks Keith is a cat that's going to push something off a counter if he turns away, and then he reaches for the tie on Keith's sweatpants.

It’s somehow unexpected.

Keith jerks back, hopping half a step. “Wha—”

Shiro rolls his eyes again and sighs. “Look—there's nothing new to me about your ass. God, Keith.” He stands and folds his arms, turning toward the mirror before he realizes that undermines the whole goal and turns another quarter-step to face the closed door. There's a tip of dog nose sticking under the gap where Red is trying to be in on the action. “Does this work?”

“Yes,” Keith snaps.

Shiro shakes his head, but doesn't turn again. “You were never this modest at the academy. Or the station. Do you remember—”

“ _Yes._ ”

You forget to carry a spare shirt to the showers once and no one lets you forget it. Shiro had an extra one in Keith's size in his office. It wasn't a long walk and he had pants on, but someone snapped a picture and mocked up a faux-wanted poster that made several implications about Keith's proclivities.

It's harder getting out of the clothes than it was getting into them. He reaches the first stumbling block in seconds. The double knot on the string was unnecessary in retrospect, but he was worried about them falling off in the middle of the hospital. That was before he knew walking was banned. It took ten minutes to get them on; it makes sense it would take as long to get them off—minutes Shiro spends with his hip cocked, glaring a hole into the door, muttering comments he seems to think are helpful. Keith is two seconds from grabbing the pair of fancy hair shears Shiro keeps on the counter and cutting the clothes off when he stumbles in the literal sense and knocks his leg against the counter.

Shiro is there before the hiss leaves his mouth. “You know what you are?” he asks when Keith is steady and done blinking tears out of his eyes.

“An idiot?”

“Yeah. But just about this.” He runs his hands down the leg, checking the brace. “Even you aren't perfect, huh,” he mutters to himself, chagrined.

Keith's gearing up to a response—something cutting, something about Shiro's eating habits, at minimum—when Shiro dispenses with courtesy and goes for his pants without waiting for permission. The nimble touch of long fingers there, untying the drawstring and skating under the elastic of the sweats is so foreign it draws his breath, makes him grip the edge of the counter like a lifeline.

Shiro shoots him a glance, questioning.

“You don't—you don't need to do this, really.”

The hands still and pull away. Shiro sits back on his heels. “Do you not want this?” he asks after a moment, quiet. When Keith doesn't know how to answer, Shiro takes his undamaged hand. “If you never want me to touch you, it's ok. That's not—” he pauses, pulls the prosthetic hand through his hair, “—a condition. For this.”

Keith is missing several layers of the conversation. “What don't I want?”

Shiro's mouth works for a moment, his face turning a new shade of blush. “Being—intimate?” he manages, finally, only a little choked. “We've never talked about it.”

Red darts up Keith's face. No, they haven’t. It wasn’t appropriate conversation for a hospital. Involuntarily, his eyes fall to the width of Shiro’s shoulders. In the field, he wears a shoulder holster that makes him look like he’s stepped out of a shitty mafia movie. That image alone ruined Keith years back; he’s never tried to move past it. Shiro in leather, Shiro in Kevlar, Shiro in uniform—it's not the best reason to stick with the job, but there have been a few hard weeks where it was enough to sustain him. He opens his mouth and tries to make a competent sentence. but fails with, “What?”

Shiro closes his eyes. “If you don’t want to be together, like _that_ , that’s fine. I just want you here.”

“No…” Keith doesn’t understand why that’s the first place Shiro’s head would go on this. It’s only been him. For years, it’s been him. Shiro is handsome, but worse—he’s comfortable. The few times they’ve ended up in bed together haunt Keith like a good dream. It doesn’t seem right that Shiro looks the way he does and yet Keith’s highest concept fantasy involves Shiro’s arms and a soft bed and a few free hours of daylight to waste dozing together.

He would take anything Shiro wanted to give him, if he thought it was something Shiro wanted to give in earnest. He's torn up over this—over wanting something so simple so much, to the exclusion of anything and everything else. And nothing in him can convince him Shiro wants the same. He wants Keith safe, but he doesn’t _want._

“It's not that,” Keith hears himself say.

Shiro frowns. He works the sweats off Keith's hips in silence. Keith isn't wearing underwear; one layer of confusion is enough when it takes ten minutes to get to the bathroom anyway. And Shiro is right—there isn't any part of him Shiro hasn't seen. He pulls them the rest of the way down, over the brace and cast and then Keith is bare in front of him.

Shiro freezes for a moment, unsure for the first time since they stepped in the room. Keith knows how he looks, all road rash and gauze and he can't even stand on both feet right. Even this long on most of two feet is taking it out of him.

His muscle’s lost some definition with the hospital stay. Shiro’s eyes trace up his abs, to his chest, and then he shakes himself. Without speaking, he stands and helps Keith to the tub. It takes more doing because Shiro has to help him maneuver his broken foot so it's hanging over the side.

The water is perfect; it stings over his abraded skin, but it's the best he's felt since he woke up in the hospital bed. He ducks his head under and stays as long as he can. When he rises back up, Shiro is watching him. The steam and effort of getting Keith in the water has his bangs falling over his forehead, his face red. It's been years since he saw Shiro in disarray so often.

“You look like a wet dog,” Shiro says.

Keith shakes his head, flicking water in Shiro's face. It's been longer than his hospital stay since he's had a real bath and not a five minute shower between shifts. Shiro is asking for it, really. “Like that?” he asks when Shiro is done spluttering and trying on his best faux-offended face.

“... Just for that, I'm reinstating the annual water fight. And  you're going down,” Shiro mutters, reaching across the tub to grab a bottle of what Keith hopes is shampoo. There are at least four other bottles which is three more than anyone needs—especially someone whose hair is half buzzed off.

Shiro massages it into his scalp, working around the stitched gash. It smells like honey and his touch feels so good Keith almost makes a sound.

“But last time Lance owned you,” Keith groans, sinking further into the water even as he pushes into Shiro's hands. There's a reason why the water fight got cancelled in the first place.

“How was I supposed to know he's a nerf gun savant?”

Keith shoots him a look from under his soapy bangs. Lance puts off an aura like every nerf gun commercial of the nineties was somehow able to manifested in human form. “I'm pretty sure it's on his resume.”

Shiro's smile cracks on a laugh. “Yeah, point. Hold your breath, okay?” He eases Keith's head back under the water.

It's nice, Keith concedes to himself by the time he's clean. It's nice to be looked after. The hot water lulls him down from the constant fight and his knee-jerk loneliness abates a little under Shiro’s hands.

Red gets tired of being left out and butts her head in the door at some point. Getting out of the bath turns into a tiny fiasco. Shiro opts for picking him up right out of the water, lifting him over Red, carrying him to the room, and setting him down on the sheets, water and all.

“But this is your bed,” Keith says faintly as Shiro walks back into the bathroom. He’s painfully aware of his own lack of clothes against the comforter—and this is Shiro’s room. This is Shiro’s bed.

Shiro walks back in with a towel and starts drying him off, patting over his head and hair and bare skin, gentle and attentive and nothing more. It’s more tedious than getting in the bath was. Guilt wriggles through him, but it's not stronger than the relief of being clean. And Shiro's presence has always steadied him. It's the one place he can let down his guard entirely.

When he’s done he helps Keith pull on a tank top and a borrowed pair of boxers big enough to fit over the cast. They’re both borrowed, Keith realizes and fights a blush. He’s in Shiro’s bed in Shiro’s house, wearing Shiro’s clothes.

“Feel better?” Shiro asks. “You look like you're about to pass out.”

As though it means nothing, Shiro pulls back the sheets for Keith.

“But this is your bed,” Keith says dumbly.

“You're already here,” Shiro smiles, sheepish, “and I'd feel better if I can keep you where I can see you, honestly.” He says it as if it's an admission to be embarrassed about. “Is that okay?”

The bed is a different species from Keith's old box spring on-the-floor mattress; there's more than enough room for the two of them and Red, too. Still, the thought of a night in close quarters with Shiro makes him redden.

“It's fine with me, either way.” Shiro makes his voice airy, as if Keith isn't the one person in the world that could pick out a lie from him at a hundred meters and a dead run. He wants Keith there. His motives might be suspect in the endgame, but for tonight, for sleeping, he wants Keith next to him. There's nowhere Keith would rather be.

Instead of answering, Keith inches back as far as he can and edges under the blankets. Shiro has to lift his legs up on the bed for him. The cast is heavy and he only has the one hand. He fluffs the pillow before he tucks it under Keith's head.

“That's overkill,” Keith mutters.

“I'm the boss. I’m allowed overkill,” he says over his shoulder while he strips for bed. Keith's cheeks heat as he watches, but he's too tired to bother looking away. He can pretend he's asleep if Shiro turns around.

It happens that way by accident. He didn’t sleep well in the hospital, and even before that, the case didn’t let him see his bed for more than a few hours a week. He blinks back awake when he feels a hand on his cheek.

“Need anything?”

Keith wracks his mind with the one brain cell he has left. “...Dog?”

“She's sleeping on your leg, buddy.”

“Did she get food?”

Shiro snorts. “Yes. Go to sleep, please.”

“But—”

“Keith. God, you're young.” Shiro pulls the hair off his forehead and runs a thumb across his cheekbone. His gaze is cut with something unidentifiable and private.

Keith reaches up to touch his hand. The prosthetic feels odd. State of the art, they said when they first gave it to him, and he let Keith adjust it and touch it, test it for hours with little games until they'd both learned its edges. “I'm... not that young.”

Shiro takes a rough breath. “You're not old.”

He’s trying to say something else, Keith realizes, but can’t decide what. Maybe Shiro can't either.

“But, you're young too. I don't—”

The kiss is unexpected—still—and sweet. Shiro parts his lips and then it's something else. Keith brings up his hand to grip the short hair at the back of Shiro's head, trying to be less than desperate. Shiro hums in approval and deepens it until one kiss melds into the next. He tastes like toothpaste and his skin is warm from proximity to the bath.  He’s still half asleep and maybe it’s part dream, part want. He can’t remember why he ever doubted.

Not until Shiro pulls away and says against his lips, “I can’t lose you.”

He pulls away then, climbs under the sheets and pulls them up. It’s warm and Keith’s thoughts are mud and fog. Shiro’s words replay in his mind like the scream of the siren when he was lying on the pier after the explosion, soaked in water and blood and numb besides.

_I can’t lose you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lance: of course keith's dog would eat the ottoman i got you as a housewarming gift... like dog like owner  
> shiro remembering it was mustard and lime flower print and he's tried to get rid of it for years: yeah :((
> 
> As always, if there are any errors, feel free to let me know!! And you can [on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/) or send me anon hate [on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> lance wrote him a speeding ticket and left it on his desk.
> 
> Come watch me have daily breakdowns about voltron on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir)!


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